Audax At Fidelis

by Dreamsteel

A new prophecy prompts the Nine to worm their way into Hogwarts, protect Harry Potter, negotiate their lives around magic, and above all NEVER reveal their true identity. But more things are at stake than just the boy's life: forgotten creatures and deities stir as demigods return to the isles of modern Albion, and events reveal that the fate of magic itself may be in question.

4. Ferrum Potesta Est

Chapter 4

Author's Note:

Hi guys. Long time no see, I know. Sorry about the long delay. This is A-Level year for me and I study four subjects, so yeah, busy times.

Anyway, extra-long chapter this time to make up for it. Hope you like it!

A very, very large thank you to all those readers, followers, and favourit-ers (is there even a word for that? Oh well, when in doubt make words up, eh?), but an especially loud, enormous thank you to everyone who reviewed!

So,

CinderAshTree: I think you'll be surprised...

madisonbookaddict14: I'm sorry, because I know that's probably a reference to the book, but I don't recall that. I'll look it up though, thanks for the suggestion.

WhiteWinterStar: Yes, fairly awkward. Glad you're liking this. Gods know how I'm having fun writing this. It's become the sole thing I actually do in French lessons.

KAT of Fanfiction: Thanks, Kat. Glad you found it funny. I wasn't sure about that scene, but apparently I did well to include it. Good!

Desantog: hang in there, my friend!

Haylie: Your review is what's refreshing! Thanks a lot for your encouragement.

Finwitch1: Oh, yeah... I hadn't thought of that for Percy.

Guest: what can I say? You're a great person for actually saying that :)

Thank you all.

So, once more, here goes.

---

"Who are you?" a voice asked rudely.

Everyone jumped and spun around to see who had spoken. A girl was looking at them, pale and shimmering enough to look almost transparent in the pale light. Her accusing eyes narrowed at the demigods through a pair of thick-lensed glasses, and her thin mouth was set in a hard line of disapproval. She floated in the air about a foot off the ground, and it was that bit which truly convinced the teenagers they were seeing a ghost.

Struck dumb with surprise at her presence, the demigods didn't answer. Her mouth thinned till they could barely make out her lips.

"Well?" She snapped. "Are you going to tell me or are you going to stay there and gawk at me all day? Mind you, I'm used to it. Everyone always pointed and laughed at me, to make fun of me." She thrust out her translucent chin. "Well go on then, laugh at me. Then I'll just go somewhere you can't find me or-"

"You're a ghost." Leo blurted.

The girl's face crumpled.

"Yes! See? I knew it! Students are always making fun of-of-of m-m-me!" She started sobbing.

"Fun of you? How are we making fun of-" Percy started to ask, completely confused.

"I'm d-d-dead! I'm dead and you're al-alive and everyone just has to point. That. Out!" She howled and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as the sobs racked her torso.

The demigods exchanged utterly bemused looks. Only when the ghost girl's sobs failed to stop after a minute did Hazel decide to do something. She took a few steps closer to the girl, and after pausing and looking thoughtful, pulled Nico along with her. The boy scowled and opened his mouth, visibly to protest, but his sister shot him a withering look. He closed his mouth, but his scowl deepened.

Hazel approached the ghost girl.

"Hello." She said, tentatively. "I'm Hazel. What's your name?"

The girl suspiciously peeked at her through ghostly fingers, then loudly blew her nose on the sleeve of what, Annabeth suddenly realized, had once been a school uniform. So this girl used to be a student here, but... she looked so young. What had happened to her, how had she-?

"Myrtle." She grudged out. "Moaning Myrtle, people call me, because I cry when they say mean things to me."

"Who says mean things to you, Myrtle?" Hazel asked gently.

Myrtle's cheeks suddenly flushed silver until her face was almost opaque.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know!" She shouted, her voice going shrill. "Students are always coming in here to laugh at me while I'm minding my own business being dead and wanting to be alone. Look at Myrtle, they say, she's ugly, she's fat, she's got stupid glasses!"

Hazel held out her hands and made a placating gesture.

"Okay, okay, we get it. Lots of people are mean to you." She said. "But we're totally new students, Myrtle, we've never said mean things to you, and nor would we. We think you're nice, don't we guys?"

There were nods around the dilapidated bathroom, some immediate, some grudging and some forced. Piper had to nudge Leo's ankle because he hadn't moved.

"Yeah... delightful."

Moaning Myrtle floated back down a little, her magnified eyes still suspicious behind their lenses, but she had stopped crying and that was definitely something, in everyone's opinion.

"New students?" She said, looking doubtful. "It's true I haven't see you before - and I've seen nearly everyone in the bathrooms around the castle. You sound different too, I suppose. Where do you come from?"

"We're Americans." Jason answered. Myrtle took one look at him and her cheeks were more silvery than ever. Piper smirked.

"We've been exploring the castle." Hazel continued. "I'm sorry we disturbed you. We were just looking for...well, never mind, but it's just to say we didn't mean to upset you. Really. I know what it's like - I mean..." she looked uncomfortable, "I know what it is to have mean things said to you. It hurts and you can't do anything about it 'cause it would just get worse. And then there's no-one to go to, not really, because you're always afraid that they'll laugh as well, or turn you down."

Another tear glistened and trickled down the ghost girl's cheek, and she nodded miserably.

"Yes." She mumbled. "Well... all right."

Hazel visibly decided to go a bit further.

"You... you mentioned you were dead, Myrtle. Does that mean you're a ghost then? We don't see any in America, you see, and we're not quite sure about any of this. If you don't mind telling us, how exactly did you...?"

"Die?" Myrtle said, her tone lofty now. "Oh, it was tragic. Terrible, really. I was in here and this giant monster snuck up behind me. Caused a whole lot of trouble for Headmaster Dippet, that did, but I don't care about that. The only thing that mattered to me was that Olive Hornby was made prefect the year after that. She was the one responsible for my death, you know. Yes, she teased me and mocked me until I decided to go and cry in this particular bathroom for a while..."

She prattled on, while Percy sidled up to Annabeth.

"I thought Dumbledore was headmaster here?" He whispered in her ear, low enough so that Myrtle didn't hear and suspect he was making remarks about her.

"I think the man she mentioned was probably headmaster in her own time." She breathed back. "I don't think ghosts age at all after their death, and this bathroom looks really ancient."

"... and I said, I said Well it's your own fault, for teasing me and causing my death, now you'll just have to get used to me. Oh, she tried all sorts of things to get rid of me, even exorcism, but I was going to haunt her for the rest of her days. I told her straight away that I wasn't going back to that damp, dark place you go to just before you become a ghost. It's horrible, all dark and foggy and full of other dead- oh!"

She clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes widened, her lenses making the effect particularly impressive. Hazel's eyes were like that of a hawk as she scrutinised the ghost.

"What was that, Myrtle? A dark place full of dead people? What do you mean?"

Myrtle shook her head, terrified.

"I'm not supposed to talk about that." She said, looking as though she was about to be upset again. "I can't talk about it, don't make me. It's your fault. I'm not used to talking to people any more, you made me talk too much."

"But I think we can help you." Hazel pressed on. "You're here all the time, and it doesn't sound like it's the best existence. Don't you want friends? Or something to do? Or-"

Myrtle clenched her fists and rocketed up in the air again. Annabeth rolled her eyes, and Leo face-palmed.

"If I don't want to talk to you, I don't have to!" She screeched. "Here I was, minding my own business, and then you barge in demanding answers for everything. Who do you think you are? I don't have to answer to you, you-"

"No." Nico said. "But you do have to answer to me."

Everyone's gaze swivelled around to look at him. He was standing, stiff as a rod, staring at Myrtle and steadily pointing his Stygian iron sword at her. If Myrtle's phantom anatomy had previously been capable of expanding her ghostly veins and rushing silver blood to her cheeks, it was now demonstrating the total drainage of said blood, until Myrtle was so pale she was nearly transparent.

"You." She breathed. "Something's... different about you."

"Correct." Nico said. "Let's see if you can get the next thing right too. What am I holding?"

Myrtle's eyes shifted from the boy's face to the sword he was holding out towards her. She looked, if possible, even more alarmed.

"That's answer enough for me." Nico said, shifting his grip slightly, so that instead of pointing his sword directly at her, he was pointing it in her general direction. "Next question: can it affect you?"

Slowly, Myrtle nodded.

Nico smiled. It was a strange smile on one so young, a smile that Annabeth would have no trouble associating with a heartless and cold-blooded assassin.

"That's right, it can. But just to be absolutely certain, let's try it, shall we? Stay very still."

He moved closer to the absolutely immobile Myrtle and slowly placed the flat of the blade right next to her arm, ready to touch it. Hazel stared wide-eyed at her brother.

"Nico, what are you doing?"

"Yeah," Perch joined in, slightly angrily. "Stop it, you're scaring her."

"Trust me. I just want to prove my point. I won't harm her." He raised an eyebrow at Myrtle. "Unless she moves." He added coldly.

"Hazel, try and touch her arm."

Hazel hesitated, her golden eyes flitting between Nico and Myrtle, the latter of whom was so still she had stopped shimmering in the pale sunlight. Slowly, tentatively, Hazel touched Myrtle's arm.

Except she didn't touch it. Her small dark hand passed right through Myrtle's arm, and Hazel inhaled sharply. Her hand looked grey inside the ghost's limb, almost as though she were a ghost herself. She removed it quickly.

"It's freezing." Hazel whispered.

"Yes, it is." Nico said, still holding Myrtle's gaze. The girl, instead of being offended at this very deliberate pointing-out that she was dead, looked positively calm. She was still utterly immobile, but as she continued to stare at Nico, her features showed fascination rather than fear.

"Now let's see if my sword can touch you." Nico whispered. He inched his blade closer to her, and still Myrtle did not budge. She stared into Nico's eyes, then gasped slightly as the blade came into contact with her arm and stopped.

Nico smiled again. This time it was smaller, but warmer.

"I can touch you with it, then." He concluded. "Now do you know who I am? Who all of us are?"

"I can guess." Myrtle breathed. "You're him. The young Master. I'd heard whispers about you, but I thought they were just other ghosts trying to make fun of me." She stared some more at him. "You touched my arm. No-one's touched me since I was alive."

"If you know who I am," Nico said, "then you just about know who they are, too. They're like me. Different. Special. We need your help, and you're the only one here who can give it to us."

The ghost girl nodded, transfixed by this strange boy and his utter authority over her.

"Nico, what are you doing?" Hazel asked again, this time more gravely. "What happened to never revealing who we-"

"One," Nico said, "Myrtle is a ghost, and therefore under my control, as are all ghosts regardless of their magical status. She couldn't betray me if she tried. Two, Chiron said to make allies, which is exactly what I'm doing - you want people to talk to you, don't you Myrtle? Don't lie." He tsked impatiently. "You can't lie to me, I can feel what you want. You can be our ally, you'd be important to us. Keep our secret. Act as our liaison with the magical world."

Myrtle's mouth opened and shut several times. She seemed gobsmacked by this sudden proposal which nobody but Nico seemed to be in the know of.

"You mean..." she started eventually. "You want to be my friends?"

It was said with such suspicion, yet such undeniable hope, that Annabeth couldn't help but feel pity for her. Poor girl, she'd been killed as a child, teased in her lifetime - and death-time, by the sound of it - and lonely for who knew how many years.

Nico winced a the word 'friends', but Hazel stepped in, clearly conscious of the fact that her brother was creeping everybody out.

"In short," she said, "yes. Will you be our ally, Myrtle? We need your help for something."

Had Myrtle been alive, her cheeks would have been positively rosy by now. The rate at which her ghostly sanguine system reacted to her emotions was so fast it was unnerving, perhaps even more than the fact she was, in actual fact, a ghost. A creature who by all the laws of mythology, physics and imagination wasn't supposed to still have blood.

"Oooh, all right." She agreed happily. "Yes. Master Nico says he can command me, but he doesn't need to. If you're really not like all the other students, then I want to help you - I'm tired of always being surrounded by them."

"Surrounded by students in an abandoned bathroom? Sounds unlikely." Thalia muttered. Myrtle ignored her, which in Annabeth's eyes was already a great improvement on her part.

"Don't call me Master Nico." the boy in question muttered, lowering his sword.

"But - but what should I call you, then?"

"Nico, like everyone else does." He answered flatly, re-sheathing the blade.

Myrtle actually giggled.

"Ooh, I get to call the master of ghosts by his first name? That is nice." She smiled widely and floated closer to him. Nico was starting to look like he was regretting sheathing his sword. Percy saved him the trouble of pulling it out again by steering him out of the way and pushing him out of the door.

"Excuse me," he addressed Myrtle, "I need to have a word with my cousin."

She nodded coyly and simpered at them as they backed out in to the corridor, where they were soon joined by Piper, Annabeth, Thalia and Jason. The others stayed inside, presumably to keep their new ally busy while their friends dealt with trouble.

Percy roughly let go of Nico and turned on him. He looked so angry Annabeth was surprised he had kept it in so long.

"What," he growled, "were you thinking? You think this is all a game?"

Nico straightened, and his black eyes started shooting daggers at Percy. The aura of darkness around him, so mild in the past few weeks, suddenly intensified and Annabeth felt an unpleasantly familiar, cloying cloak of gloom close in around her. She shuddered, reminded of Tartarus.

"I was making allies. Doing as I was told." He spat. "I knew what I was doing, which is a good deal more than what you could say for most of what the great Percy Jackson ever does."

Percy's jaw clenched, his eyes turning as stormy as Nico's. He opened his mouth to retort, but Annabeth cut across him.

"Nico, putting aside the fact that you decided to act entirely of your own accord, what we're getting at is that what you just did was scary. You pulled out your sword and pointed it at that girl like she was little more than a monster! Where was the harm in letting her know who we were, if we had to, in a way that didn't involve weapons?"

"Because she's not harmless, even though she's a ghost. I was letting her know who she was dealing with right away, in a manner that would discourage her from ever being a liability for us." He shot back hotly.

Annabeth was getting angry too.

"So that's what it's about for you?" She asked, indignant. "You think it's about power over others? She could have come to our side without those barely-disguised threats! Haven't we already learned time and time again that force wasn't always the solution to everything?"

Nico scowled, but didn't answer.

"What I want to know," Jason said gravely, "is how she sees us now. Can she see our weapons now that she knows we're similar to you? Can she see our tattoos? Can she teach others to see them as well?"

"She can't tell anyone about this at all, because I forbid her to." Nico muttered. "It would be physically impossible for her to tell anyone about this, even other ghosts. That means she can't lift the power of the Mist for others either. She can see our weapons now because she expects to, but others won't, so they can't."

Jason nodded in acceptance, and Piper tentatively placed a hand on Nico's shoulder. She took it as a good sign that he didn't shrug it off, even though she could feel him tense and angry still.

"I don't agree with the way it was done," she said quietly, "but I think you did the right thing to offer us as her friends. I could feel what she wanted most too, and that was company. She was lonely, and you promised her companionship, Nico. That's one good thing at least."

"I just hope we won't have to play babysitters from now on." Thalia said, scowling. "Look, coz, from now on none of us can take important decisions like that without consulting the others. To do so would be as stupid as it would be unfair. This mission is hugely important, and it can only succeed if we trust each other and work as a team."

Nico stared into the eyes of Artemis' Chief Huntress, so blue and brimming with stormy power, and nodded moodily. Annabeth thanked Ananke that he finally saw sense, and sighed in relief.

"Right." She said. "Now that's sorted, let's go see if our new friend Myrtle can help us make a rainbow."

Meanwhile, Leo was finding it hard to keep up conversation with Myrtle. She seemed disappointed that some of them, namely Nico, had left the room, so it was a slightly sulky ghost that he tried to be friendly to.

"So," he said. "Do you, er... meet many other ghosts here?"

Myrtle's eyes narrowed at him, immediately suspicious despite Hazel's recent efforts to convince her of their good intentions.

"I suppose so." She said glumly. "There are ghosts all over the castle, like the Bloody Baron, and the Jolly Friar. There are others too, but I never really meet any of them because I'm usually crying in my toilet."

Leo nodded as though that were a perfectly good reason to stay unsociable.

"Ah. Yes. It must be very... special. If I spent so much time in a place I'd get very attached to it, given that I would never really leave it, and all. I mean, who needs friends when you can have U-bends and flushes, eh?" He started rambling, aware that he was sounding increasingly sarcastic, even though he wasn't meaning to. But he was Leo after all, and it was only ever a matter of time before sarcasm made its appearance when he opened his mouth.

Hazel was looking around the bathroom, and Leo knew she was desperate to find something that could enable them to contact Chiron.

"Myrtle, do you know where we could find something ghat could make a rainbow?"

"A rainbow?" The ghost asked, puzzled. "Why ever would you need a rainbow?"

"Oh, in America it's the latest fashion for people like us to communicate." Leo said lightly. "Huge business out of it. Everyone has their portable rainbow-makers at home, but we lost the one we shared on the way here."

Myrtle nodded, looking thoughtful.

"Well, you look like fifth-years at least, have you covered the Light-Splitting Charm?" She asked. "I remember learning it in my third year, I think."

Leo exchanged a slightly panicky glance with Frank and Hazel.

"Er... no. We haven't." He answered. He let her figure out for herself a reason for their lapse in knowledge. "Any other suggestions?"

"I...I think I remember something about mirrors being able to project tiny rainbows..." Myrtle said vaguely, starting to drift over to where the shattered remains of the mirror lay.

She passed through a shaft of sunlight as she did, and a flash of colour caught Leo's eye. His gaze snapped to the floor under Myrtle, and just before she left the small area where the sun was shining through the pale window, he spotted a faded, mere suggestion of a rainbow on the floor as her shimmering form floated across.

"Woah!" He nearly shouted, holding a hand up and startling everyone in the room.

"What is it?" Hazel asked, alarmed.

"Myrtle, you... you genius! Stay right there, and don't move!" Leo cried, excited as a cat on a hot tin roof. He rushed to the window behind her, grabbed a cloth and a spray bottle from his tool belt without even having to think about it, and started to energetically scrub the glass panes. Within twenty seconds it was as clean as it was going to get. He stepped back and admired his handiwork.

"Perfect! Now look, guys! Myrtle is our own mediator with Iris."

He pointed at the floor beneath Moaning Myrtle, slightly further away from the window than she was, where her immaterial ghost form acted as a glass prism and was splitting the light enough to form a brightly coloured rainbow, which now lay projected against the drab stone floor.

Hazel laughed in delight, while Frank sighed in relief and finally re-sheathed the dagger he had drawn at Leo's shout.

Myrtle looked fascinated.

"I never knew I could do that before." She said.

"Love, the state those windows were in, you wouldn't have found out in another century, believe me."

Leo hopped down from the sink he'd climbed onto to reach the window and reached deep into his tool belt, thinking hard about a golden drachma, but his hand came out empty. He grimaced, not really surprised. If money came freely from his belt, he wouldn't be Leo Valdez any more, he'd be freakin' Bruce Wayne.

"I think Annabeth has the coins." He informed the others. "D'you think they've finished biting Nico's head off yet?"

At that moment, Annabeth herself opened the door and came back in with the others in tow. Leo took it as a good sign for all their friendships that Nico didn't look any surlier than usual. Their returned friends were all delighted at their discovery, and Myrtle flushed silver again as everyone expressed their gratitude for her help. It had now been a full five minutes since she'd moaned, and getting longer every second. Company and kindness seemed to do wonders for her attitude.

Annabeth fished out a drachma, threw it into the rainbow, politely asked for Iris' assistance, and presently was redirected to Chiron the centaur.

He appeared, as suddenly as if they'd turned a TV screen on, moodily drinking from a large chalice, ignoring the leopard-rug's wheedling for carnivorous treats. As soon as he saw them all in a group peering trough the multicoloured spectrum, he dropped his chalice and cantered the few yards between them.

"Percy! Annabeth! You're safe, that's excellent. How are the others?"

Leo leaned forward and pulled Hazel and Jason along with him.

"Sir! All present Mr Chiron, sir!"

Chiron actually laughed, which was a surprise. Annabeth didn't think she'd ever heard him laugh at Leo's corny humour before. No doubt he was just pleased to see them unharmed and - so far - successful.

"Tell me then, did you manage to get into Hogwarts?" he asked, as eager as though someone had offered him a carrot.

Percy nodded and grinned. Annabeth nodded as well, but was a bit more reserved in her enthusiasm. She had her doubts, and her friends knew it, but she didn't know how to tell Chiron about them without sounding foolish or paranoid.

"It was quite easy, actually." Percy said, keen to tell his old friend and mentor all about their great heroics. "Well, Leo fell in to a lake and Thalia nearly blew herself to bits, but all we had to do in the end was pretend to like punishment."

Chiron stared at him and Percy's friends made awkward eye-contact. The son of Poseidon clapped a hand to his mouth, and his eyes widened to comic proportions.

"That... That came out wrong." he stuttered. "What I meant was... There's this guy who really likes whips and dungeons-"

Thalia flapped her hands around. "Stop, stop, stop! You're making it worse!"

Percy bit his lip, trying not to laugh to shake off the embarrassment, and Annabeth knew it was no use waiting for him to carry on. It indeed could only get worse.

She hesitated very slightly before speaking up. She still wasn't very comfortable talking openly around Myrtle, but Nico had assured her it was safe. She'd learnt to trust that boy with her life a month ago, so hey, why not the fate of magic as well?

"We got led to the headmaster, who seemed beyond surprised to see us, but he offered us a place here after we told him how our camp got destroyed and that we needed a place to stay - and a school to go to."

"The school bit was unnecessary." Percy muttered.

Piper nodded fervently in agreement.

Chiron looked quite surprised - Annabeth had never seen his eyebrows so high up, not even when he witnessed Leo burn half a strawberry field because he'd sneezed unexpectedly.

"You mean to say... Albus Dumbledore let you in on the basis of nothing else but your word?"

Annabeth winced. Well, her weak attempts at hiding stuff from their conveniently transmissive new friend were now permanently blown.

"Sort of." she said. "Listen, Chiron..."

She told him about her fears. About McGonagall's strange reaction when she saw them - more akin to realization than surprise - Dumbledore's telepathic powers, and his strange readiness to take their word on matters that concerned him and the entire wizarding world greatly...

Chiron nodded sagely as she spoke, and when she had finished Percy spoke up.

"But... it's unreasonable, isn't it? There's no reason for the old man to completely disbelieve us, and there's no way he can prove us wrong if you help us."

"Only a daughter of Athena complains of things being too easy." Thalia said, nudging Annabeth with a slightly teasing smile.

Her friend shook her head, and didn't smile back.

"I'm serious." she said, and she looked it. "Chiron, something about this isn't right. It doesn't match up."

He sighed.

"You're right to worry. Albus Dumbledore is the single most brilliant mind in the wizarding world. Getting him to fully believe anyone is one thing, but tricking your way past him is another entirely. If error wasn't human, I'd say it were impossible."

"But... you knew it was going to be this hard?" Hazel blurted, astounded. "You knew about Dumbledore before we did?"

"Of course." Chiron answered, sounding surprised at her astonishment. "I told you we occasionally keep tabs on the wizarding world. But I also knew that if anyone among us could get past him, you lot could."

"Don't change the subject." Piper said, sounding cross and folding her arms. "And flattery won't work either. I don't understand why you didn't brief us fully. This is incredibly important!"

"If I had told you he was immensely clever and the greatest wizard in this century, would you still have gone as readily as you did?" Chiron shot back, in a reasonable, I'm-aeons-old-and-you're-cubs tone. "And even if you had, you would've tried too hard, and forced him to believe you - and while I have every respect for Miss McLean's powers, we all know the old ways of persuasion are the best."

They still didn't answer, so he continued.

"You mentioned he could read minds? If one of you had me his gaze while concentrating on deceiving him, he would immediately have been alerted of the trickery and the whole mission would've blown."

Piper looked like she wanted to say something else, but in the end she grudgingly nodded and went to stand next to Jason.

Annabeth took the opportunity to tackle their most immediate issue: their security.

"Chiron," she started, in a hurry because Myrtle was starting to shift impatiently, causing the image to ripple slightly, "we need you to plant believable evidence of our status as wizards in America. Birth certificates, school reports - we named the school Mythomagic, by the way - ID, everything. Maybe even some sort of report on what happened to the school." she glanced at the others and grinned sheepishly. "We told them it was destroyed by monsters. Never hurts to tell a bit of the truth."

She told him in more detail the tale she'd related to Dumbledore earlier, and he slowly nodded in understanding.

"That's fine," he said, ruffling his hair with a hand, something none of them had seen him do before. "Yes. Good. ID, reports, evidence... I'll ask Hermes to do something about it. He won't be happy to act as the errand boy, but he owes me one anyway. And, my word - Mythomagic, really? Rings a bell." he grinned.

The others laughed, and Nico rolled his eyes, but couldn't entirely hide a faint blush when Annabeth winked at him.

"First name that came to mind." she said, smiling.

The image suddenly rippled again, because Myrtle was leaning forward, trying to see.

"Chiron, we have to go." Annabeth said worriedly. "Professor McGonagall said she'd send for us soon, so we'd better be around when she does."

The centaur nodded.

"Understood. Go then, and good luck. You've done well." He gave them the smile Annabeth knew he reserved for those he held in the highest respect, and she felt her heart swell, both with pride at his words and sadness that she wouldn't see him for a long time. The demigods waved at him, and Percy passed a hand through the shimmering haze, dispelling the image of their friend until only the shifting multi-coloured lights remained.

Moaning Myrtle was looking at them wide-eyed and positively glowing with excitement. If she got any brighter she could replace any neon light-bulb, Annabeth thought.

"That's the most interesting thing I've seen since the day I died." she said.

"Life is never boring around us." Percy said wryly. "We'd better go, Myrtle, but thanks a lot for your help. We won't forget it."

"Or you." Hazel put in. "We'll come and visit you, sometime. I promise."

Percy exchange a slightly guilty look with Annabeth, and she knew that he was thinking of Bob, or Iapetus as he was known once more.

"Don't worry." she whispered, taking his hand. "I have a feeling Hazel will keep her promise, like Nico did. Seems to run in the family. Their dad's know for keeping his promises."

"It'd be worth it to be a child of Hades just for that." he said, his tone full of bitter guilt still. "To keep a promise."

She put a hand on his cheek.

"Hey," she said. "I know you feel bad about it, and so do I. We won't make excuses, because we know better, but remember this: Bob forgave us. He remembered everything and he forgave us for forgetting about him. The guilt we're feeling is the price of his goodness, and I don't know about you but I think we're very well off, because no gold on earth could replace Bob's friendship."

His lips twisted into a half-smile, and he acknowledged her words with a quick peck on the lips before leading her back to the others, who were saying goodbye to Myrtle.

The ghost girl's eyes were brimming with tears, but to her credit she kept them in and even smiled a little as they thanked her profusely.

"I know you'll be busy." she said. "But I've never met people like you before. I'll watch out for you."

Hazel smiled brightly and reached out a hand, as though to touch Myrtle's shoulder. Of course, her hand passed right through her, but not enough to be rude, and Myrtle even reached up and did the same. She smiled again, this time more shyly, and looked over at Nico.

"I'll be here whenever you need me Mas-er, Nico." she told him. "I'll help you with anything you need to know."

Nico nodded cordially.

"Thank you, Myrtle. I knew I could count on you."

Myrtle blushed again, and Hazel rolled her eyes at her brother's formality. "Oh, loosen up." she grumbled at him. "This is school, not a funeral. Oh, sorry Myrtle. I mean... Just lighten up Nico, okay?"

Nico shrugged and walked out of the bathroom. "Why? I thought the fate of the world depended on this mission."

"Doesn't mean we can't have fun while we're completing it, dude." Leo said, catching up with him. "I for one want to know how those staircases work."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Minerva McGonagall's suspicions were confirmed as soon as she opened the door to Dumbledore's office. She could immediately tell he was preoccupied, because he failed to turn and face her as she entered. His back was turned to her, for he was standing at the window, looking out at the beautiful sunset that stretched out across the darkening Scottish landscape. It was the kind of sunset that could belong both in Haiti and in the middle of a wintry desert, so wild and colourful did it seem in contrast with the dark hills, nearly black against the bright sky. Gold mingled with pink, yellow and burnt orange, stretching so high up that it steadily reached blue again, deepening in colour as west turned to east.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, but Minerva had seen others, and she wanted answers.

"Albus." she called out. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Who can say, Minerva?" her colleague and friend answered, still staring out of the window. "What secrets lie behind a sunset? To the Celts it was the beginning of a new day. To the Aztecs, one of such beauty as this one was a sign that the gods were feasting. The Ancient Greeks were convinced it was the Sun god who had completed his tour on his shining chariot. To us wizards and muggles, it is simply our nearest star fading behind the horizon and the end of yet another day."

Minerva nearly made an impatient sound, but held herself back just in time. She had great respect for Dumbledore, Circe knew she did, but the man could be so infuriatingly elusive sometimes. She settled for stalking over to face him fully, and primly folding her hands in front her before fixing him with her eyes, which she had once been told could unnerve those subject to their stare... something about not blinking.

"You know what I mean. Those students this afternoon, Sybill's prophecy, Voldemort's return... it's all coming together, isn't it?"

He fixed her with a shrewd stare, one she knew he usually hid behind a mask of politeness and mild curiosity. As his clear blue eyes met her grey ones, she felt the full force of his intellect hit her, almost physically, and he held her gaze for a little longer than necessary. Minerva considered it a credit to their friendship and the trust between them (perhaps even to her intelligence, a daringly hopeful little voice whispered to her) that he did not attempt to wave away her words, or deny them completely.

Instead, his gaze held hers, and finally he looked away and back to the sunset.

"Yes, I believe so." he said simply.

Minerva inhaled sharply. So she had been right. I knew it, whispered another little voice, but a part of her quailed in spite of hearing confirmation for her thoughts. Perhaps there had always been a part of her that had hoped she'd been wrong, ever since she'd seen the nine bewildered teenagers that afternoon.

"You think those children are the solution to all our problems?" she asked. "A week ago we didn't even know magic was in danger, and now not only is its fate in question, but we once again have to rely on under-age students. Where is the world going, Albus? Most of the staff don't even fully believe Sybill uttered a real prophecy, and we're relying on a few lines of poetry? First Potter at one year old, then Potter again at fifteen, and now a bunch of American adolescents from a place we've never heard of!"

Dumbledore sighed and leaned on the window ledge, his hand supporting his chin.

"I do not deny that every aspect of this business is strange, Minerva." he conceded . "But I dare say there are higher powers than us involved in this."

It took a moment for Minerva to register what he'd said.

"You mean... Other countries? You think Voldemort had become a threat big enough for other wizarding nations to join us in the fight?"

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. If anything, he looked amused.

"Come now, Minerva. Don't make me spell it out for you. The entire British wizarding world already regards me as an attention-craving crackpot, and if the Ministry supports that view than why should the American Federal Wizarding State believe anything else? And if America stays out of the matter, why should any other nations get involved? It's natural for the governments of nations to concern themselves only with matters that directly affect their nations."

"Then... what higher powers are you talking about?" she pressed, lost.

"Have you ever wondered what made prophecies prophecies, Minerva?" Dumbledore asked her, with the usual air of someone changing the subject, but which she was quite sure wasn't entirely genuine. He straightened and calmly strode back to his huge desk. "Or rather - what makes them possible? What causes them?"

Minerva stood stock still, agape and totally confused.

"I suppose... Well, Mr. Flamel did extensive research in the area, and he concluded that prophecies were the results of warps in time, and humans who were especially sensitive to the effects of temporal disturbances caught glimpses of the future. These glitches in time barely exist enough for anyone to know anything about them, but the theory is that what people like Trelawney see, or hear, is in a form so completely alien that whatever they relate in words is vague and imprecise, therefore any prophecy made is only a rough translation of what the pythia saw."

Dumbledore nodded once and sat down in his chair.

"Hmm... Perhaps... Time warps, really?... I wonder..."

Minerva was getting more and more impatient.

"But what does that have to do with anything, Albus? Sybill's outburst the other day was real, there's no doubt about it. Why suddenly examine the causes of prophecy when hundreds have been made before? Granted, examining the precise workings of her trade would probably be beneficial to all of us, but I don't think we need go much further than fraudery for that, Albus."

Dumbledore lightly tapped the tips of his fingers together, deep in thought. After a few moments, he spoke again.

"You recall what I once told you about young Harry Potter all those years ago, Minerva?"

"Which bit?" she asked tartly. "The bit about Voldemort marking him as his equal, or the part about his scar acting as a pletephone between him and Voldemort?"

"I believe the term is 'telephone', though I'm not sure the analogy is entirely accurate." he chuckled slightly, and became serious once more. "I was referring to the part about Harry being the one prophecized to defeat Voldemort, and that, quite simply, in doing so he would either succeed or die trying."

"You... you never told me this." Minerva told him shakily. "You said... You said Harry was the one to kill Voldemort because he had the right to, not because he was the one fated to!"

"Did I? I don't recall." Dumbledore said vaguely, staring into space. "In any case, both versions are correct: Harry will face Voldemort. The only difference lies in the outcome."

"What do you mean?" Minerva asked, her voice trembling slightly with growing fear. She hated it when Dumbledore shed the mask of the benign headmaster and emerged as the cool genius, so detached from the emotional side of the facts that nothing bothered him in his reasoning.

Dumbledore spread his hands a little, as though in a gesture of regret.

"Harry will face Voldemort in battle. That much was clear in the prophecy. But what it was not so clear on was the outcome of the battle. If Voldemort survives, does Harry die or does the possibility for his survival still stand? Or conversely, if Voldemort is defeated, is Harry still entitled to live? The prophecy warns of a final face-off, but not of the outcome nor the consequences."

Minerva was silent for a while as she digested this horrible new perspective.

"But what has this got to do with the new students, or this new prophecy?" she asked him. "I think they're the ones mentioned in Sybill's prophecy, and I know you do too. But what have 'higher powers' got to do with this? You think something is controlling everything that happens in the wizarding world?"

Dumbledore sighed again and leaned back in his chair. He looked tired already, and term hadn't even started.

"The question is, if the prophecy we heard the other day at breakfast does link in with all this, and I strongly suspect it does, then how do our new students fit in to the equation? There's no doubt they are the ones mentioned in the prophecy, and I commend you for your rapid perception of that. But they are so strange, Minerva. Almost as though they are completely new to the wizarding world itself. They didn't know what to answer when I asked them how they managed to cross the boundaries, and when only one girl answered they all looked at her like she'd gone mad!"

He looked at Minerva, and for the first time in years - since she witnessed Harry Potter's arrival in Privet Drive, in fact - she saw uncertainty and doubt in his eyes.

"Do you know what they claimed, Minerva? They shared their belief that technology had been mixed with magic to obtain them passage here. Most students of wizarding background barely know the meaning of electricity, yet these seem like experts! Assuming they were not lying - and why would they be, after all - I don't think it would be possible to overestimate the danger to us all if Voldemort discovered a way of mixing muggle technology with wizard magic. The world would go down in flames, and us along with it!"

Minerva watched in slight awe. It wasn't often one got to see the greatest wizard of the century this agitated. "Do you think they could be lying? I mean, it's possible, but why do so if they're just innocent stranded students? It's not like they know anything about the prophecy. Who are they, Albus?"

"I don't know. Yet. But that does not matter at this precise moment. What I want to know is, will they serve to help Harry or hinder him? Will they save Magic or doom it?... So many questions, Minerva." he sighed, his tone so full of sad wisdom Minerva could almost forgive him for having scrutinized Potter's future so detachedly. "One barely knows which questions to ask before getting one's answers."

He sighed again. "When you heard Sybill's prophecy Minerva, what did you think of the way it was formed?"

Minerva thought about it.

"It was perhaps longer than the one you told me about, though I've never heard that one for myself so I can't be sure. The style was different - more rhythmical. It even rhymed in places. Nothing like Sibyl's usual misty style." she concluded with a sniff.

Dumbledore nodded slowly.

"Exactly. That was my thought as well. Nothing like her usual style at all. You may therefore be surprised when I tell you it was nothing like the prophecy she made to me, either."

"Truly?" Minerva asked, surprised. "Then why the sudden change? It didn't look like she had any control over it. She didn't even know she'd spoken at all until you told her about it afterwards!"

Dumbledore stood up and went over to the cabinet where he kept his Pensieve.

"Perhaps a slight return to the past will help enlighten us." he murmured, as though to himself.

He pulled out the grey basin (inscribed with runes Minerva had never been able to translate in spite of her - if she said so herself - extensive knowledge of them) and placed it carefully on the edge of his desk. Dumbledore took it in his hands and started rotating the silvery waters slightly, so that the basin's flickering lights reflected and swirled on his face, highlighting the lines around his eyes and making him seem older than ever. A few seconds later, he pulled out his wand and swept it slowly over the waters and pulled back slightly.

A moment later, a figure rose out of the basin, like a ghost in appearance, but neither dead or alive. It was a memory. Minerva recognized the figure of Sybill Trelawney (the masses of jewellery helped, it had to be said). Trelawney rotated slowly in the basin, then opened her mouth and spoke in the raspy, harsh tone Minerva had been so surprised to hear the other day at breakfast.

""The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..."

The figure of Trelawney descended back into the depths of the Pensieve, and Minerva looked at Albus.

"That was nothing like what we heard the other day." she confirmed, voicing what they were both thinking.

"Indeed." said Dumbledore softly. "Which leads me to think that whatever caused Sybill to make the prophecy a few days ago is different, if not entirely separate, to what made her speak the one we have just heard. You recall, I am sure, the prophecy she also made two years ago in Harry's third year, about Peter Pettigrew. Harry's description of it indicates that it was different also, more alike to this one here."

Minerva took one, deep breath, then mentally steeled herself and resumed her usual crisp tones.

"As strange and fascinating as all this may be Albus, we have a much more pressing issue at hand. We have no idea of who these new students are - I've never heard of their surnames in my life - and they claim to have been going to this... this Mythomagic Institute! Have you ever heard of such a place?"

Dumbledore shook his old white head and he carefully transported the Pensieve back to its cabinet.

"No. I was as surprised as you are to hear them say such a name - one would almost think their school dealt with legend as well lore."

"But do you think they're telling the truth?" Minerva insisted. "They could barely meet my eyes when I tried to question them - or rather no, they met my eyes but remained absolutely stony. I've never met anyone so uninformative when they chose to, and I knew Tom Riddle."

Dumbledore smiled grimly.

"Alas, I don't think anyone can truly say that they knew him." he said. "But as for the American students... Who knows? I must say I've never heard of this institute, and their claim that so-called 'monsters' destroyed it seems unlikely, but it's simple enough to verify their story. I'll send an owl to the American Minister of Education of Young Wizards and Witches, perhaps he can tell me more of this."

Minerva relaxed. Of course they could check the students' facts, she'd forgotten that they came from a fully developed nation with an established government. With any luck, the Americans could even perhaps be more... organized (to avoid saying less chaotic) than their British counterparts. Maybe they even had records of these students at their old school.

"Good. Well, I'm glad we've settled at least one thing. They don't seem like a bad sort, anyway. Nothing like Messrs Crabbe or Goyle, or heaven forbid, Mr Malfoy. They were rather polite, actually. Maybe they could give the Weasley boys a tip or two."

"The Weasleys are an excellent sort Minerva, as you well know." Dumbledore said briskly, but with a smile. "Perhaps a little rough around the edges, but I assure you Molly has them well in hand."

Minerva snorted.

"I doubt that, when they're several hundred miles away."

Dumbledore peered at her over his spectacles. "Never underestimated the power of Molly Weasley's Howlers, Professor McGonagall. It may be the last thing you do before you go deaf at the detonation."

Minerva chuckled, and made a move to leave.

"I have a last few matters to attend to." she informed him. "I'll see you at the feast. And for Merlin's sake, please don't seat me next to that pink monstrosity!"

Dumbledore waved her off with a slight smile, which Minerva knew she was not meant to have noticed.

0o0o0o0o0o0

Percy struggled into his new black robes. 'New' was a bit of an overstatement though; they were second-hand and they looked it. The sleeves frayed a little, the fabric at the elbows was shinier and thinner than the rest of the cloth, and they were a bit short for him too. The others pulled them on in silence. The looks they exchanged showed that they didn't think much of the quality of the robes either, but the tiny dwarf professor was supervising them and talking nineteen to the dozen whilst doing so.

"...bit faded I know, but the cloth is still quite solid, and if you notice any tears or fraying I can mend that for you in a jiffy. Ah yes, Mr... Valdez, is it? Here we go then, that's it. Reparo. Done. That should last a good long while, unless you rip it apart with your teeth... Let's see, Miss...? McLean? Yes, a bit short for you, we can fix that. Prolixo Pannus. Hurry up now, all of you, the feast is going to start in a few minutes..."

"Why do wizards wear dresses?" Leo asked Percy in an undertone.

Percy shrugged and concentrated on tugging his collar into place. He winced. He really hated uniforms.

"They're robes." Annabeth corrected Leo. "They're a medieval style of clothing."

"I'm sure they must have been very fashionable in the eleventh century." Thalia muttered, wriggling uncomfortably, looking like she was trying to get rid of a lizard crawling up her back.

"You can say what you like, but if they don't have separate spaces for legs then they're skirts. And if the skirts are connected with the top, then it's a dress." Leo affirmed stubbornly.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and went to help Percy with his tie before he strangled himself.

"Your robes are fully black now, but as soon as you are Sorted the trimming will magically turn into the colour of your House." Professor (...Flitwick?) called out above their mutterings, which was impressive considering not one bit of him reached higher than their shoulder blades, not even Leo, who was the smallest among them.

"Professor, how do we get Sorted?" Annabeth asked politely. "Is it a sort of test? Professor McGonagall didn't mention..."

Professor Flitwick chuckled.

"That, Miss Chase, is a secret. But it is a test of sorts, yes."

With that less than unhelpful answer, he hopped down the stool he had been standing on and scuttled out of the antechamber they were in, telling them to wait quietly for a few minutes while he made sure everything was ready.

A couple of them (namely Leo and Frank) were still fiddling with the smaller details of their uniform, so the others took to looking at the walls instead, which like most of the rest of the castle they had seen so far was covered in portraits. Most of them were just portraits of people that qualified in various degrees as 'weird' , but one of them showed a group of dancing girls around a may pole, while another pictured an old lady with a huge wig snoring in the corner of her frame. The detail was impressive, Percy thought. There was even a dribble of spit dribbling down the old lady's chin.

"Hazel, I've just remembered." Leo said suddenly, looking up from his tangled tie with a slight frown, like he was trying to recall something. "In Dumbledore's office, he asked us how we got here and we didn't know how to answer, but you said we used a...a porthole?"

"A portkey." Hazel corrected him.

"Yes, that. How did you know what to say? What is a portkey?"

"I don't actually know, at least not in detail." she admitted. "I assume it's a method of transport used by wizards. Lady Hecate told me to use that if we got quizzed on how we managed to penetrate Hogwarts. She told me, sort of in my mind, just before we stepped into that light portal. Her voice said it in my head, and she sounded like she knew what Dumbledore was going to ask us."

"Well, it was useful." Jason conceded, though a slight frown creased his brow. "But whatever precisely a portkey is, it didn't seem to fully convince Dumbledore. He acted like it was still an unlikely thing to have happened."

"Maybe it's really advanced magic and he was surprised we could do it." Hazel suggested, shrugging.

"Maybe it's only something that works if he gives it specific permission." Annabeth mused, deep in thought. "You know, I'm starting to realize just how extensive the power of magic is. So far we've seen moving portraits, talking statues-" ("That's not new." Hazel, Frank, Jason and Percy muttered, thinking of Terminus.) "-the conjuring of objects out of thin air, magical reparation of clothing...and who knows what else they can do?"

"Probably anything you can think of." Hazel said, shrugging. "Though I expect the same old rules won't have changed: dead is dead, can't make anyone love you, etc..."

Percy gave her a curious look.

"You seem quite nonchalant about this." he remarked.

She shrugged.

"Adaptation. Picked it up when I suddenly found myself alive but seventy years from where I was supposed to be." she said, a little dryly.

"-and did you hear the Professor? He said something to make the magic work, like a spell. It sounded like Latin." Annabeth continued, oblivious by now to the interruptions.

"Yeah, it was." Jason answered. "It literally meant 'lengthened cloth'."

Annabeth mused, rubbing her forehead as was her custom.

"So magic can't be used unless you say the spell that makes what you want... happen. The wording of the spells must be incredibly precise - imagine wanting a jet of water and ending up with puffs of steam, or ice cubes."

"It must be incredibly risky," Piper guessed. "If these people can't speak Latin like the Rom- like Jason and Hazel and Frank, how can they know the precise consequences of the spells they make up? Latin is a really complex language; I can barely understand it when I hear you guys make jokes about things at Camp."

"That's because you're wired to understand Greek instead of Latin." Thalia answered. She paused and looked at her brother, her expression suddenly questioning. "There's a thought. Which language do you understand better since you embraced your Greek legacy?"

Jason frowned a little, and struggled to explain.

"It was strange. One day I could speak Latin as fluently as English, and then after that day when I chose 'Greek', it was like my Latin steadily got rustier as I spoke Greek more and more. I'd never really had to thought about it before. When I met you Greeks for the first time, I could understand you and I got better at it all the time, but it became the more natural language as time went on."

"And it's only been, what, a year?" Leo asked. "Damn. Wish I could learn languages that easily. French was torture in school."

"Intelligere Latin adhuc?" Hazel said, her golden eyes narrowed with worry.

Jason grinned slightly. "Yeah. Don't worry, I still understand it perfectly, I just can't get the words out as easily anymore."

Hazel relaxed. "Good. I'd hate for you to lose your paternal tongue."

"Greek is his paternal tongue, too." Thalia pointed out.

Hazel waved a hand. "You know what I mean. It's good he can still speak three languages."

"Agreed." said a voice behind them. They jumped and turned around. Professor Flitwick had returned, and was peering at them curiously.

"Three languages, Mr Grace? My goodness, that's rare in a student these days. Which three, might I ask?"

Jason hesitated slightly.

"Three is a bit of an exaggeration, sir. I've studied Greek and Latin, yes, but..."

Flitwick was nodding. "Ah yes, the Old Tongues. Well, I dare say they will prove very useful in you studies, as I'm sure you'll find out. Is it a common thing for students to study Greek and Latin in America?" he asked, looking at each of them in turn, his keen eyes glittering with ferocious intellect. Annabeth fought the urge to gulp. This little but formidable man was the same sort as Dumbledore: nearly impossible to trick, but perhaps just about possible to mislead.

"Maybe." she said, with a shrug. "We do in our school, but I can't say if students in others do as well."

"It's sort of essential, to understand what we're dealing with." Piper elaborated vaguely.

Flitwick nodded, looking most impressed. "Yes, I imagine understanding the roots and components of spells must be tremendously helpful to comprehend theory. Perhaps even to cast the spell itself non-verbally - have you started that yet in...?"

"Mythomagic? No. Not yet. Our teachers want to make sure we get the basics first." Annabeth ventured, constantly aware that one wrong word, one slip-up could betray her total lack of knowledge of magic.

"Yes, a very reasonable thing too, I suppose. Though here at Hogwarts we push students and their limits almost constantly. One thing I always tell my Ravenclaws: when you do something, do it hard. When you think, think hard. When you study, study hard. When you exercise, push yourself until your mind is completely occupied by the activity at hand. You do that, and your time at Hogwarts will fly by, let me tell you."

The demigods nodded dutifully. There was a certain amount of wisdom in that, Annabeth thought. If you could train your mind to focus completely on only one thing at a time, it would save an awful lot of time. She thought back to all those weeks and months without Percy, and how she'd been absolutely incapable of concentrating on anything for more than a minute before worry and guilt kicked in and she found herself setting off in a new direction to find her lost boyfriend.

"Now." Professor Flitwick resumed briskly. "I think we are all ready for you. The first years have not been Sorted yet, so you can witness the horrible treatment they have to go through to join their Houses before you do." he said with a wink and mischievous smile. "Off you go, then. Mr Jackson, if you could lead your classmates through that door... Yes, that one. Good. Quick march, everyone!"

The bubbly little professor scuttled after them as they filed out of the antechamber one by one. For the first time, Annabeth was starting to feel the slight pinching of nerves in her stomach, which for once had nothing to do with the stress of keeping up their cover.

She was crowd-nervous. She hated being the centre of attention, especially if it was people she was going to get to know. She didn't mind talking in front of masses of people if they were all strangers, but she, Annabeth Chase, the chosen Daughter of Athena to return the Athena Parthenos, was feeling sick at the notion of having to stand up in front of young, curious, judgemental people around her age. Hundreds of them.

Glancing around, Annabeth could see by Piper's slightly paler-than-usual face, Thalia's stony expression and Leo's fluttering hands that she wasn't the only one who was starting to lose her cool. She hurriedly grabbed Percy's hand before they left the chamber, and squeezed it tightly.

As long as we're together, the returning squeeze said.

Together, they entered Hogwarts' Great Hall, and gasped in unison. Annabeth was having a flashback of Camp: the sky was above them. As in actually above them, there, high up! A closer inspection revealed that it was an illusion, but judging by the starry sky outside, the ceiling was doing a very good job at copying it. Annabeth immediately felt herself relax a little. If she could see the sky during meals, like at Camp, then surely Hogwarts wouldn't be so bad. So far, she hadn't really thought of the impact leaving her homeland would have on her - she wouldn't see her family or many of her friends for a whole school year. But now, as suddenly as she had felt the relief, a wave of homesickness hit her as she stared at the sea of black-clad students before her.

The ringing in her ears indicated that the entire hall had fallen silent at their arrival, and Annabeth could feel her heart pumping and the blood rushing to her face. Oh, how she hated being stared at. She forced herself to remain calm and impassive. She was a daughter of Athena. No-one could best her at being cool in the relaxed sense of the term - except perhaps by a child of Hypnos.

Whispers, mutterings and murmured questions were starting to spread among the crowd of students. Annabeth suddenly realized that their little group had stopped at the threshold of the Great Hall. Professor Flitwick was bobbing anxiously behind them, bouncing on the balls of his feet, wondering why everyone had stopped moving.

Then Professor Dumbledore stood up, an arm outstretched towards them as if to welcome them into his school - an action which, Annabeth was sure, was entirely for show: he knew more about them than he let on. She imagined the other teachers were already aware of the peculiar circumstances of their arrival, but if the students' mutterings were anything to go by, they certainly were not.

"Welcome," Dumbledore called, at large, "to our esteemed newcomers. May I present to everyone here your new fellow students, from Mythomagic Institute in America."

The volume of whispers and comments redoubled. Clearly, exchange/transfer/foreign students were a rarity here at Hogwarts.

Annabeth scanned the crowd, trying to evaluate the emotions of the crowd of students. A school this large was bound to have group rivalries, cliques and social prejudices. Annabeth had been to enough schools to know that learning to spot them early would prove to be beneficial in the long term. The students sat at four, long, identical tables that ran the whole length of the hall. The only thing that differentiated the tables from one another was the little glimpses of colour around the students' uniforms. Each table had its own colour: green, red, blue and yellow.

It was hard to tell what the students were thinking: most of their faces still registered surprise, though some of them were grinning widely, and others looked excited. Annabeth nearly smiled.

Looking a little closer, she also saw that some of them also had their eyebrows raised higher than seemed natural, and a little group of pupils with green trim on their uniforms were talking quietly, heads close together. They were not smiling.

Tired of waiting, Professor Flitwick gave Percy and Annabeth a slight push to get them moving again, and they awkwardly walked up the middle aisle until they reached the end tail of a small line of very young students, whom Annabeth had not noticed before. They looked about eleven years old, and most of them appeared terrified or extremely nervous. Annabeth couldn't bring herself to sympathize: at their age she'd already killed more monsters than she'd cared to count. That having been said though, she was far from being completely relaxed at that precise moment in time either. New schools, it seemed, were a universally recognized valid reason to be nervous.

Glancing at the staff table, Annabeth noticed that quite a few of the teachers seemed to be looking at each other in surprise and, for some, utter confusion. So they hadn't been told of their arrival then, Annabeth realized, taken by surprise.

One teacher in articular was shooting Dumbledore furtive and questioning looks. She kept shifting this way and that apparently trying to see if anyone else in the staff knew what was going on. Her movements attracted a lot of stares, because unlike her colleagues, who dressed in dark, professional robes, this woman clearly thought the world was soon going to run out of pink. She stood out among the line of teachers like a peacock among penguins. Her entire outfit was the same garish shade of pink, down to the twee little bows visible on her shoes. She had a similar one in her tightly curled iron-grey hair, Annabeth noted with disgust.

Once, the pink woman's eyes met with Annabeth's, and the girl was immediately transported back to third grade. She'd had a teacher who looked a bit like Miss Candyfloss here, all sweet and girly and soft on the outside, but Annabeth remembered how her eyes bulged like a frog's as soon as a pupil talked back at her. Her cheeks would flush blotchy purple, and she would whisper venomous threats of detention to the rebellious student, until they either paled and backed down or outright laughed in her face. Those who laughed eventually got expelled - usually too quickly to be a coincidence - and even those who didn't often ended up in a month's detention. Sometimes someone reminded Annabeth of that woman, whether by their steel-cold stare or their ugly, square-jawed face, but never in her life had anyone so acutely recalled to mind her dreaded third-grade teacher.

Annabeth coldly held her gaze until the woman looked away, but she continued staring at her until Percy nudged her and pointed at the front of the line. Professor McGonagall was striding across the dais, with a scroll and a piece of dark fabric in one hand and an old-fashioned three-legged stool in the other. She placed the stool down on the steps leading up to the staff table directly in front of the headmaster, then placed the fabric on the stool and turned to face the rest of the school. The crumple heap of material suddenly stiffened and straightened - by itself, Annabeth registered with a small shock - and revealed itself to be, in fact, a hat.

It was big and floppy, but very dusty and patched. Annabeth had an amusing mental image of the Aphrodite girls' faces of disgust if it occurred to them they had to wear it. A large rip near the brim of the hat opened wide...and started to sing.

In times of old when I was new

And Hogwarts barely started

The founders of our noble school

Thought never to be parted...

And it went on and on while Annabeth's jaw gradually dropped closer to her knees as it sang, until finally the hat fell silent, and the whole student body burst into applause. The demigods joined in weakly, exchanging a mixture of bewildered, amused and relieved looks.

"So we only have to put it on?" Leo whispered loud enough for them all to hear once the clapping had quietened. "And there was me thinking we'd have to fight dragons, or turn into animals!"

Annabeth smiled weakly. She had to admit she was relieved too, even though she would have preferred a more private method of determining in which House she belonged.

She'd jumped a bit when the Hat had started singing. Okay, talking clothing was something relatively new. She'd known about Hermes' talking staff (well, technically George and Martha were real snakes, but still) and various other strange - often godly - accessories that had the power of speech, but this was...frankly bizarre.

It soon became even more unnerving, as the demigods soon found out.

"When I call your name, I want you to come up here and sit on this stool, whereupon I will place the Hat on your head. The first years will go first, and our new... transfer students will have their turn next."

She cleared her throat and unrolled the scroll of parchment, then called out the first name. Annabeth couldn't help thinking of just how more practical a clipboard would be, and in doing so an image of Chiron swam into her mind, the centaur supervising a 'Capture the Flag' game with an orange clipboard in his hands and a pen tucked behind his hairy ear. Another pang of homesickness knocked at her heart, but she forced it down, deliberately focusing on the small boy who had been called up by McGonagall.

Euan Abercrombie nervously scampered up the steps and gingerly sat on the stool. He was so small his legs barely touched the floor, and the hat was so large it slipped right past his ears until only his chin was visible.

The whole school waited with bated breath. Annabeth was wondering how the Hat would announce its decision; would it shout it out, or whisper it in the boy's ear, or privately tell McGonag-

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Annabeth jumped again and accidentally stepped on Jason's foot. He yelped a bit, and she hurriedly apologized before turning back to stare wide-eyed at the Hat. It was motionless once more, and McGonagall lifted it off a fiercely blushing Euan Abercrombie as he ran towards the table where the students with red trim to their uniforms were loudly applauding.

Annabeth was furiously reviewing this whole new perspective in her mind. The hat could read minds. Who on earth, up high in Olympus or in the pits of Tartarus would wear anything that could - very obviously - reach into your mind and judge the very depths of your personality?

Okay, it had probably been invented solely as a way to Sort Hogwarts students, but mind-reading - no, soul-reading - had got to be a breach of privacy, surely?

Annabeth whispered in Percy's ear.

"We can't do this, that hat reads minds to Sort us. If he does that to us he'll know who we are!"

He looked down at her, alarm starting to appear on his face as well. Clearly he had not considered this.

"What do we tell the others?" he whispered back.

Annabeth hesitated.

"Tell them to imagine it's Dumbledore. Tell them to try and keep their minds clear of anything that could link to Chiron or the prophecy or...anything."

He nodded, and bent forwards to whisper to Hazel, who immediately frowned in concern and passed on the message to Frank and Nico, while Annabeth warned Leo and Thalia. A few seconds later, their whole group was aware of this new potential danger, and they waited, tenser than ever, for their Sorting.

Slowly, the line of first-years thinned out, until finally 'Zeller, Rose' was sorted into Slytherin, and it was the demigods' turn. They shuffled in anticipation, while McGonagall pulled out a smaller scroll from her pocket and unrolled it. The whole school had fallen deathly silent now, until only the sounds of the pink woman's impatient shifting remained. The tension couldn't have been cut even with the Subtle Knife.

"Chase, Annabeth!"

Taking a deep breath, Annabeth stepped forward and walked over to the stool as calmly as she could manage. Determined to seem unconcerned, she sat down with as much grace as she could muster, and McGonagall placed the Hat on her head. Annabeth immediately tried to clear her mind of anything that had nothing to do with what was happening, there and then.

She was older than Euan Abercrombie by several years, but the Hat was too large for her as well. It slipped over her eyes, until she could no longer see anything but the dark, musty fabric. It must have been made on purpose, she realized, so that the students' emotions as the Hat searched their mind didn't appear too clearly and unnerve anyone.

Ooh, you're a clever one, aren't you? A little voice whispered in her mind. Annabeth hadn't expected it, but this time she suppressed her surprise and managed not to jump. The little voice sounded a bit like her own conscience, but what it said was entirely out of her control.

Not the usual Hogwarts student, are you? Very unusual, all sorts of things in here... My, my you've been through a lot! This isn't the kind of mind I'm used to seeing under me. Quite a bit older, I see, and foreign.

Annabeth desperately tried not to think of anything incriminating, and she heard - no, felt, or maybe sensed - the Hat chuckle.

Ooh, touchy about privacy are we? Don't worry, I'm sworn to secrecy about what I see in people's minds... A what a very nice mind you've got here, too. You'd do nicely in Ravenclaw, just for that... Aah, good amount of bravery too, that's always useful. Good. But you're quite modest, I see, so perhaps not Gryffindor. Eager to prove yourself, but maybe not quite ruthless enough for Slytherin, although there's a fair amount of cunning in here... What do you value most, girl?

The sudden question took Annabeth by surprise, she'd been concentrating so hard on not thinking of anything. But she didn't hesitate as she gave her answer.

Knowledge, she thought. With knowledge almost anything is possible, provided it's applied correctly and knowing there could always be a part of the puzzle missing.

Good answer, the Hat said, rather smugly. I'll be sure to nominate it as a possible riddle for the Ravenclaw Common Room. Now, unless I'm much mistaken, that makes you a-

"RAVENCLAW!"

Annabeth gave an unpredicted sigh of relief and removed the Hat from her head. She would never, she decided, ever ever let something into her mind again. Her mind was her sanctuary, the place where things usually made sense - not something to be prodded and poked and explored at leisure by dusty old garments.

She was so preoccupied by what she'd just experienced that she didn't realize the Ravenclaw table, the one where students wore blue-trimmed uniforms, was applauding, whistling, and yelling and so loudly that the nearest teachers at the Staff table had their hands clamped over their ears. Annabeth walked quickly over to the table and sat down at the nearest space, smiling tersely at her new housemates, hurriedly shook a few hands held out at her and turned back to watch the sorting. Suddenly isolated by more than a few yards of her friends, she felt isolated, and found herself fervently wishing that someone else would join her in Ravenclaw.

Next came Nico. When McGonagall called out his name, he slouched over to the stool and gingerly put the Hat on his head, the scowl on his face visible even to the ones furthest from the dais.

The Hat and the boy remained motionless for a few seconds. Annabeth wondered how long her Sorting had taken. It had felt like nearly a minute, but she knew the human mind well enough to know that time passed more quickly mentally than in real life.

A second later, the Hat became rigid and yelled "SLYTHERIN!"

Nico moodily took it off and made his way to the 'green' table, where the students were loudly applauding him. His scowl barely lessened, but he nodded in greeting to a few of his new housemates as he sat down.

Next, Jason was called up. The Hat barely touched his head before it yelled "GRYFFINDOR!"

Jason grinned sheepishly and joined the 'red' table, where the Gryffindors were applauding more loudly than any other table so far. Annabeth remembered something about Gryffindors being brave, but reckless and maybe boisterous. She grinned a bit, suspecting she knew who else was going to end up in Gryffindor.

Predictably, Thalia was also placed in Gryffindor, and she high-fived Jason as she sat down next to him, to equally thunderous applause. Next came Percy. Annabeth crossed her fingers, hoping against all odds that the Hat could discern some hidden genius in him and place him in Ravenclaw with her.

But the Hat was having none of it. The Hat had been on his head for a second when the Hat yelled "GRYFFINDOR!" for the third time.

Percy visibly blew out his cheeks in relief and waved at Jason and Thalia as he jogged over to the Gryffindor table. As he sat down next to Thalia he looked straight at Annabeth and gave her thumbs up. He mouthed See you later, to which she nodded and grinned brightly, trying not to show the sharp pinch of disappointment that they were once more being separated.

It was Hazel's turn after that. She glided up the steps like a woodland fairy, so small and delicate did she seem against the magnificent splendour of Hogwarts' Great Hall. Actually, glancing around, Annabeth noticed that their plates and cutlery were - what looked like - solid gold. Her eyes widened. To demigods, gold was of course inferior to celestial bronze and Stygian iron, but eating from it was still pretty damn impressive.

Hazel took a long time to get Sorted. A few whispers around Annabeth told her that this was sometimes referred to as a 'Hat-Stall' - when the Sorting Hat took an unusual amount of time to determine a student's House. Finally, after nearly two minutes, the Hat' rip opened wide and yelled out "HUFFLEPUFF!".

The last table to receive one of the demigods among their midst, the one full of students in yellow-trimmed uniforms, erupted into applause. Judging by the excited shrieks that came from the younger children and the polite but equally loud clapping of the elder students, they had not thought they would get any of the Americans. Annabeth smiled, a little sadly. If people in her world greeted foreigners with such enthusiasm as they did here, then Romans would never have had to blossom away from the Greeks, and war would be a rare and pointless thing. War was seldom anything else than pointless, she knew, but there were times when there did at least appear to be a good reason to fight, such as defending your home. But whenever Annabeth thought of all those colonial, expansionist wars fought in the name of conquest and imperialism, she felt sick. All those families torn apart forever, all those lives lost... Hades must have had a field day every time an emperor decided he fancied his neighbour's land, she thought dryly.

Her unexpected and morose line of thought was rather thankfully interrupted when McGonagall called for Piper to come to the front. The hall fell silent once more, though this time there seemed to be slightly more of an air of expectation: whenever Piper moved, she attracted stares, and whenever she spoke all attention was on her. Annabeth wasn't jealous of her for that, and she knew for a fact Piper hated attracting so much attentions, but she did wonder at how powerful her friend was. Simply by walking up a few steps and sitting down, for example, Piper caused every boy in Hogwarts - maybe even some girls - to suddenly snatch their attention away from whatever they'd been looking at and stare at her. Some students even knelt on the benches to get a better view of this incredibly beautiful and captivating girl. Even from where she was, Annabeth could see Piper was blushing fiercely.

Thankfully for Piper, the Hat went past her ears as well, so she could at least pretend that she was alone and unobserved. Annabeth leant forwards slightly, genuinely curious as to where the Hat would place her best friend. The Hat deliberated for about ten seconds before yelling out "SLYTHERIN!"

Piper snatched the Hat off her head and hurriedly made her way to the Slytherin table, where she was greeted with many whistles and catcalls. She flushed deeper still and sat down next to Nico, who moved up to make space for her and glowered at anyone who whistled too much. Jason waved at her and smiled in a reassuring way, Annabeth saw, but Piper only seemed able to respond with a small, disappointed smile of her own.

There were two more people left to sort, Leo and Frank, and they were shuffling their feet impatiently. Leo's hands couldn't keep still. One moment he was tightly twisting the hem of his robes, then he was ruffling his curly hair, and the next he was cracking his knuckles. His ADHD always got worse when he was nervous, Annabeth knew. Nearly all demigods were the same that way.

Leo was called up next, and he almost ran to the stool, tripping on the last step and nearly snatching the Hat from Professor McGonagall. Several students laughed, and she raised an eyebrow at him. Leo grinned in his usual impish manner and squashed the Hat on his head. Annabeth could tell he was dying to figure out how it worked. She highly doubted he would find anything remotely mechanical in there, though. He seemed to simply refuse to consider magic could work on its own without any 'motivation', as he called it, though as his friends had tried to explain to him three times so far, that was the entire point of magic. Anyone who had ever seen 'Fantasia' was supposed to know that.

A few seconds later, the Hat had made a decision.

"RAVENCLAW!"

Annabeth smiled gladly. At least someone would be with her. She clapped loudly along with the others and moved up the bench to make space for Leo, who immediately started to examine the forks and knives as he reached them, no doubt under the impression that they could probably talk or move on their own too. She patted his back in welcome and swiped his hand away from the cutlery as Frank, the last one of their group, was called up.

If Hazel had seemed tiny during her Sorting, Annabeth found herself worrying that the hat wouldn't fit on Frank, he was simply so big and bulky. Not in a bad way, of course, but he did look like a box-fighter compared to the mousy little boys who had been Sorted twenty minutes before him.

Frank gingerly sat on the stool, and McGonagall almost had to reach up to put the Hat on his head. Like with Hazel, it took much longer for Frank to be Sorted. Annabeth strongly suspected the Hat would place him in Gryffindor, him being the son of Mars and all that. After nearly a minute though, the Hat surprised her - and possibly quite a few other people - by yelling out his decision.

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Hazel audibly let out a whoop of delight as cheered as her boyfriend grinned sheepishly and joined her at the Hufflepuff table. She kissed his cheek as he sat down next to her, and he grinned in a dazed kind of way that spoke volumes of how relieved and happy he probably was to be in the same House as her. Annabeth smiled, and felt a twinge of jealousy as she watched them get their backs patted and their hands shaken by eager Hufflepuffs. She would have given a lot to be at the same table as Percy, and knew Piper probably felt the same way for Jason.

But finally the Sorting was over. Everyone was eagerly looking at the plates, but they were still empty. Annabeth frowned and looked up and down the long table. There didn't seem to be food anywhere. Was it like at Camp where you had to wish for it or-?

"To our newcomers, welcome!" he beamed, smiling as though Christmas had come early. "To our old hands, welcome back! There is a time for speech-making, but this is not it. Tuck in!"

Many students laughed, and Annabeth joined in. Leo was grumbling.

"Great, but what are we supposed to tuck int-" he stopped and his jaw fell open as he took in the sight of the table now. It was very literally covered in food, from up to end, from side to side. Every inch of space between the gold plates was now occupied with dishes piled high highly appetizing food.

Annabeth laughed, both in surprise at the same thing and at his face. She ought to have known food was going to make an entrance as spectacular as this one. Granted, it was perhaps not as mind-blowing as whatever food you wanted appearing in your bowl, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Annabeth looked over to where Percy was sitting and grinned at his expression. He looked like he'd died and ended up in the kitchens of Elysium. He caught her eye and gestured excitedly at all the food around them. She laughed, nodded and mouthed 'I know'. Only he could get that worked-up about food, she remarked fondly.

Leo had already piled up several chicken wings and dollops of mashed potato on his plate, and was enthusiastically spooning peas on top of that, so she started to help herself as well. Once she'd started to eat - and what delicious food it was - she turned and addressed the boy on her other side. He looked about her age, and wore a badge on his collar that said 'Prefect'. She guessed it Hogwarts' equivalent of counsellors.

"So, er... Dumbledore. Is he always like that?"

The boy seemed surprised she was talking to him, and had to swallow a huge mouthful of food with difficulty before he could answer her.

"What, you mean cheerful and eccentric? Yeah, pretty much. Except when there's an emergency. Then he looks like a vengeful god." he chuckled nervously at his weak attempt at humour and appeared to hesitate, unsure if he could resume eating or if she wanted to continue talking.

Annabeth smiled politely and turned to talk to Leo. Well, she'd seen a couple of vengeful gods. They were a handful to manage, but she could handle them. For the first time, Annabeth really let herself relax. Talking to people her age wasn't nearly as difficult as convincing suspicious teachers of their good intentions, even for the less... social people in the demigods' group (no she wasn't thinking of any names, no she wasn't, and certainly not of so and so. Shut up, brain).

Leo was alternately trying to down as much food as possible without choking and asking mumbled questions to any magical person in sight on how moving portraits and suits of armour worked, so Annabeth engaged in conversation with the girl across from her. Her name was Cho Chang, she learned, and she was pure-blood, and therefore intensely curious about Annabeth and her friends. Annabeth was glad to have female company, so she spent a pleasant half-hour or so chatting with the girl, trying to explain what a telephone was, and the concept of DVDs - or movies in general, for that matter. By the time desserts came around (Leo's jaw once again hit the table in awed ecstasy) she had resolved with Susan to organize a House movie night. Screw magic-tech incompatibility.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Meanwhile, Percy was having the time of his life. Jason and Thalia were on one side of him, and on the other he was getting to know a boy in his year. His name was Alec Malone, and like most of the other people around the three demigods, desperate to know everything about why they were here and how they found Hogwarts. To the first bit, Percy and the children of Zeus just shrugged and said their school was undergoing construction and they had to be placed somewhere, which was more or less what they had told Dumbledore, but as he had asked, without the gory business of camp-destroyed-by-monsters details.

"So what's Hogwarts like compared to your school - what's it called again?" asked the girl opposite Alec with long brown hair that seemed more akin to a lion's mane than a human's capillary system.

"Mythomagic." Percy supplied. "Uh... It's pretty different. I mean, I'd never seen pictures move before, and the talking doors are pretty cool."

"And the suits of armour." Thalia added, munching a stick of broccoli. "Aren't there ever any issues involving stolen weapons, and pissed-off suits of armour bereft of said weapons?"

The girl looked shocked.

"Um... No. Not to my knowledge. Unless... Well, you can never be sure with Fred and George-"

"You called?" two voices sounded somewhere to Percy's right. He turned to face who had spoken and saw two twins about their age, sporting identical mischievous expressions and a shock of flaming red hair each. Percy idly wondered if it would truly be rude to ask their mother one day if she'd ever known...er, met - or... whatever - with Hermes. Just like that. The girl Percy and the others had been talking to looked somewhere between exasperated and amused.

"Guys," she said to the Americans, "this is Fred and George Weasley, the biggest troublemakers Hogwarts has seen since Sirius Black and James Potter."

"The biggest troublemakers Hogwarts has ever seen," one of the twins scoffed, "if you please."

"And proud of it!" the other twin added not a beat later.

A bell went ding distantly in Percy's mind (very distantly, for there was food near him) as he registered the name 'Potter' when the girl mentioned it.

"Really? I'm sure the other two must've been fairly memorable if they can taint your reputation that much." Thalia said, smirking.

"Au contraire, my friend." one of the twins said pompously. "We restrain ourselves to allow their memory to live on."

"Teachers can't say we're disrespectful after that, you see." the other twin explained.

"I suppose it's also because Hogwarts has a kind of memory herself, so we couldn't erase their feats here even if we tried." the first twin amended thoughtfully. "But it doesn't matter how you look at it." he said.

"Yeah. We're not picky." the second twin agreed, barely waiting for his brother to finish.

"Either way, we still rule this place." the first twin finished. Percy really wanted to learn how to distinguish them soon, because referring to them at 'one' and 'two' was weirdly reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat, not to mention rude. Watching these two talk was like watching two TV's perfectly in synch, but either one of them occasionally zoning out while the other played on for a bit. Fun at first, but could cause headaches after prolonged exposure to it.

Percy turned the the girl they'd been talking to at first, the one who had mentioned the name 'Potter'. He wanted to see if his hunch was correct.

"Hey, you mentioned someone called 'Potter' just now." he called out to her. "'Potter' as in... Harry Potter?"

The girl nodded, and two seats away from her a black-haired boy's head turned around.

"What?" he said. "Someone say my name?"

"This is Harry Potter." the girl said, smiling - although for some reason she seemed a little nervous. "I'm Hermione, by the way. Hermione Granger."

Percy held out his hand, first to the girl, then to the newly-identified Harry Potter. The boy glanced at his hand with something almost like suspicion in his eyes, but warily accepted it and shook it. Percy smiled warmly.

"Oh, good to meet you. You're known to us even where we come from." he gestured at Thalia and Jason. "These are my friends. They're new Gryffindors."

Harry Potter nodded politely as they introduced themselves. He didn't seem to be the kind to smile a lot, unlike some kids at Camp who flashed hundred watt smiles every time they did something that in their mind qualified as heroic. Percy was reminded of Nico a little at of this boy's seriousness. They had the same I've-see-so-much-more-than-you look of suffering about them, though at least this Potter kid wasn't projecting the whole doom and gloom aura the son of Hades usually did, and he didn't look as miserable as Nico.

"So. The guy who defeated Voldemort, huh? And as a baby, or so I hear. Must be a shock to see him back."

Sudden silence fell on the small part of the table they occupied. Everyone stared at Percy as though his brain had dropped out of his head. Some even looked shocked, and others had gasped as he said the name 'Voldemort'. Percy swallowed a mouthful of chocolate cake - disappointingly un-blue - and forced out a "What?"

"What did you have to say that for?" Alec asked, almost angrily. He was breathing rapidly, and like several others he looked scared as well as shocked.

"You said his name...?" someone, a small girl of about twelve, said hesitantly with the vaguest possible questioning intonation.

"How do you know that about Harry?" Hermione asked, her eyes suddenly narrowed and suspicious.

"You believe me?" Harry himself asked, and his question was the only one that wasn't accompanied by shock or hostile suspicion. His tone was disbelieving.

Percy glanced around for his friends. Jason looked uncomfortable, while Thalia rolled her eyes at him.

"Um... Yeah, 'course. Why wouldn't I?"

"Because the newspapers and the Ministry have been spreading the word about what a big fat liar I was, and that all I wanted was either to attract attention or to disrupt the peace because conflict brings me publicity." Harry Potter said flatly.

Percy couldn't even bring himself to bring his spoon to his mouth again.

"Wow. Er...geez." he said, very eloquently. "Why would they do that?"

"Because they're afraid." Hermione answered, her eyes still slightly narrowed. "They're panicking. Last time he was in power England was in chaos."

"Magical England that is, right?" Thalia asked for clarification. "'Cause we didn't hear much about it in America."

"Then how'd you know about my life then?" Harry Potter said, frowning. "I didn't think-"

"Oh, come off it Harry, you're famous worldwide!" came Hermione's impatient reply. "You're in no less than three of out textbooks, I told you so ages ago - of course they've heard of you."

"Then why are you surprised they knew about me?" he shot back.

Hermione hesitated.

"I'm not sure." she admitted. "I think it was the way you said it." she glanced slightly apologetically at Percy. "It sounded as though you were... Well, um, digging for more information. Never mind." she said, blushing. "I was wrong, I'm sorry."

"Now that's something you don't often get to hear." one of the twins called out gleefully. "Hermione Granger admitting she's wrong. Hear that, anyone?"

She blushed a deeper shade of red, and Thalia flicked a grape at the culprit. Naturally, it hit him squarely in the eye. He didn't seem to mind, and instead he winked at her and held up his goblet in a mock salute.

"Don't worry." Thalia said, turning back to Hermione. "Percy's the kind of guy that'll ask Are you sure he's dead? at a funeral, so I really wouldn't get upset at anything he says."

Hermione smiled a bit, while Percy stuck his tongue out at his cousin and stole her last chocolate biscuit. She retaliated by flicking another grape, which he caught in his mouth, to local applause and laughter.

Presently, Dumbledore stood up once more and silence fell in less than three seconds. It was clear that the man commanded either great fear or tremendous respect. Probably both, Percy reflected, though in the students' case they likely only had reason to respect him. He didn't seem the kind to authorize Filch's fetishes for whips and dungeons.

---

Any requests, questions, comments etc, please review or PM me. I am open to all suggestions. Plus I want this fic to go where you want it to go :)

UPDATE: The title of this chapter, Ferrum Potesta Est, means 'Iron is power' - a twist on the original aurum potesta est (gold is power).